Idina Menzel<\/a>, nor have you been paying attention to musical theater over the last 15 years. Menzel, 39, is one of the few Broadway stars lucky enough to be associated with two iconic roles early in her career: Maureen, the feisty performance artist in \u201cRent,\u201d and Elphaba, the very green, very misunderstood teen whose adventures in Oz are the subject of \u201cWicked.\u201d The Long Island native originated both roles. She won a Tony playing Elphaba.<\/p>\nMenzel was in good spirits during her solo concert, and why wouldn\u2019t she be? She was backed by a full orchestra, including a rock drummer and capable music director Rob Mounsey at the piano.<\/p>\n
The intermission-less matinee performance included many of the expected Menzel anthems \u2013 \u201cDefying Gravity\u201d from \u201cWicked,\u201d \u201cNo Day But Today\u201d from \u201cRent\u201d \u2013 and a few tributes to the superstar she has been most frequently compared to, Barbra Streisand. Menzel sang two numbers from \u201cFunny Girl,\u201d Streisand\u2019s 1964 breakthrough musical: the down-tempo title song and its dynamic opposite, the over-the-top \u201cDon\u2019t Rain on My Parade.\u201d<\/p>\n
Looking foxy if a bit fidgety in a long purple dress, the raven-haired performer delivered both songs with a spirit and vocal style all her own.<\/p>\n
While her instrument doesn\u2019t equal Streisand\u2019s in terms of range, raw power or polish (what voice does?), Menzel proved that she\u2019s one of the most effective current interpreters of musical theater\u2019s 11 o\u2019clock numbers \u2013 those high-decibel story-cappers that come late in the evening and sock us right between the eyes.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a voice that\u2019s best in its lower and middle registers. Menzel bubbles over with an urgency and edge which, coupled with a unique ability to sell the story behind the lyrics, makes her renditions of the show-stopping numbers unforgettable. She proves the old adage that a great musical-theater performer doesn\u2019t have to be technically perfect in order to get the job done; in fact, perfection is often the enemy. Like Ethel Merman, Bernadette Peters and other Broadway greats, Menzel can cut to the essence of a song, sacrificing precision in her quest for emotional truth.<\/p>\n
Occasionally, Menzel\u2019s repertoire got a little obscure or self-consciously cute.<\/p>\n
She sang a few self-composed ditties that she and husband Taye Diggs sing to their 14-month-old son, Walker \u2013 sweet, but I\u2019m sure a lot of fans were itching to hear more from \u201cRent\u201d and \u201cWicked.\u201d<\/p>\n
Near the beginning of the evening, Menzel gave us an odd conflation devised, presumably, by Mounsey, an unlikely mash-up of Cole Porter\u2019s \u201cLove for Sale\u201d and the hit that put the Police on the map in 1978, \u201cRoxanne.\u201d<\/p>\n
Both songs are about prostitutes, true. Do they belong in the same sonic space-time continuum? That\u2019s one that I\u2019m sure Menzel\u2019s fans were debating long into the night.<\/p>\n
Other unexpected numbers were less controversial. \u201cLook to the Rainbow\u201d from \u201cFinian\u2019s Rainbow\u201d was wonderfully delivered, and a welcome nod to an undeservedly overlooked musical. Another seldom-heard song was equally ravishing: Jimmy Webb\u2019s \u201cAsleep on the Wind.\u201d<\/p>\n
Menzel\u2019s stage presence could best be described as Long Island Diva. She\u2019s a master at ultra-dry asides and put-downs that hint at underlying competitiveness. A story about Streisand\u2019s studied non-reaction after hearing Menzel sing one of her \u201cFunny Girl\u201d songs is hilarious. At times, Sunday\u2019s concert felt like a primer on the wiles and ways of diva-ness.<\/p>\n
Such trivialities aside, Menzel leaves no doubt that she\u2019s a Broadway baby of the first order. One of her last songs of the two-encore afternoon was an a cappella number, \u201cWicked\u2019s\u201d \u201cFor Good,\u201d that she pronounced was a \u201cthank you\u201d to Orange County for filling Segerstrom Hall on a Sunday with a houseful of wild, adoring fans.<\/p>\n
Has this critic seen such potentially pandering moments before? A lot.<\/p>\n
But Menzel\u2019s a master. When it mattered, the \u2018tude disappeared and she became, like her audience, a rapt fan of musical theater in all its transformative, in-the-moment glory.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Here\u2019s a good question for local Gleeks: what Broadway diva could fill up 3,000-seat Segerstrom Hall for a simple cabaret show? Hints: \u2013 She\u2019s hard to recognize when she\u2019s not painted green. \u2013 Hordes of young female fans could be overheard talking about \u201cGlee\u201d outside the Orange County […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1114,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1113","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reviews"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/lbju4v-b78709512z.120101107203339000gogrgca2.2.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Srnq-hX","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1113","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1113"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1113\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1115,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1113\/revisions\/1115"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1114"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1113"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1113"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1113"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}